Hollywood's Problem

I cannot but aggree with you.

It seems to me that Hollywood wants to hide that the Americans also lost battles from the Germans and the Japs.

 

I think both you guys hit on the problem here...
HOLLYWOOD and WW2 movies... For one thing, nearly everything that comes out of Hollywod has a pro-american bias, simply because it comes from American studios (OK, so maybe this dosen't apply directly to Enemy at the Gates). It may be more noticeable than in movies from other countries because of the budgets and hype, but I think it's mainly a business thing. Us ww2 buffs look for accuracy and issues like that, but Hollywood movie studios only look at $$$- how much the movie will make. And generally, Americans want to see the great American war hero who can kill all the nazis with nothing more than his bare hands and a stick of gum. I would also expect though that german movies would have a german bias, French movies a french bias, and so on.

I know I'd like to see more accurate movies, but we should remember that Hollywood is in the entertainment business. If we look to Hollywood for education, ww2 movies are the least of our worries!!

 

I think Crazy has some another crazy points here but valid ones.

 

You're right, Crazy - business is business.

It's well-known that two of the closest-to-reality large-budget WWII films ( 'Battle of Britain' and 'Bridge Too Far' ) 'bombed' when released, especially in the USA.

US audiences were particularly bemused by 'Bridge..', I mean, hey, the bad guys won... And the only country in which 'BofB' turned a profit was Germany....

But thanks to the producers who took a risk, us 'buffs' have a couple of films to treasure.

 

Martin

It's interesting though that both BofB and Bridge are still being shown today, are still treasured as classics and will stand the test of time.

U-571 will sink without trace, might surface for a brief showing on Channel 5, and then the waves will close over the Conning Tower...
As for Money, look at what happened to Pearl Harbour. A massive Bomb, which spent more on it's launch party than it took to make the excellent "Deep Blue Sky".

Pearl Harbour has a good 20 minutes to show us what is possible with technology. If the cost of that starts to come down we could see some really good films: a remake of Midway perhaps?

Jumbo

 

You're right, Jumbo - it's the 'classic' thing.

Happens with books all the time, like 'The Great Gatsby' for instance - sells about ten copies when first published, now a carved-in-stone classic ! Jeffrey Archer sells millions, but will people treasure the books in thirty years' time.... ?

 

Well said, Jumbo- Pearl Harbor did show us some of the possibilities of new technology in movies.
Didn't accomplish anything other than that, but...

Unfortnately, Hollywood is all about business, and us WW2 buffs just don't make up enough of a "demographic" to make more accuracy in movies more profitable.

Friedrich, damn right- always CRAZY, and sometimes I even come up with good points as well!!!


sometimes- occasionally?

rarely?

come on, it's happened before at least once, right?

guys?

heh.

 

The one thing that bothers me too, is that Germans, French, Russians all speak English in American movies.

 

Albert, I'd guess that subtitles also don't sell very well!

It is really odd to watch though. Especially something like Enemy at the Gates... Russians and Germans both speaking English...

But what really gets me (can't think of an example now) is when they have germans or japanese or someone else speaking in English... but with some attempt at an accent! Why bother with the accent if they're just going to speak English???

 

'Ve haff vays...!'

I hate to mention 'BofB' again, but one of the things considered 'daring' when it was made was that the the Germans all spoke....German !

But I'll give Hollywood an honourable mention for 'Tora!Tora!Tora!' .

 

Talking about accent... Arnold Schwarzenegger ...Terminator from the future speaking English with Austrian accent...
Maybe he´ll be back in a war movie,that would be nice? He would make a perfect Skorzeny, eh?

 

In the late 80s, arnold s. was supposed to play "Sgt Rock" - an american sgt. (from a comic book that I grew up on) who fought germans. I guess someone realized how rediculous it would sound to hear arnold say something like "eat lead, kraut!" Hahahahahahah

 

And have you ever noticed how Arnie always has nice American names-mixed with an extrememly thick Austrian accent!!!

 

Arnold as Skorzény? I hadn't thought about that but sounds really interesting!

Crazy: Let the others decide who's crazier...

I love Tora! Tora! Tora! and the Japanesse sounds

AT least at Enemy at the Gates there was a difference; Germans spoke English with American accent and Russians with British accent.

 

I have to admit, though, I'd rather hear people speaking naturally, kind of like Enemy at the Gates, than hear people faking german or russian accents. Do it right or do it in english, but the half-ass, crappy accent solution just doesn't impress me mutch. But maybe I"m just weird that way.

 

Back to U-571, one thing I'm not sure of (help me if you can), is the scene where sub fires on sub. I'm pretty sure they had no anti-sub torpedoes in those days? Thats what killed that movie for me, I can live with the obvious recreation (American instead of Brits), of course if it had been a German Destroyer out in the middle of the Atlantic depth charging, I probably would have had a hard time with that too.

 

Well, I think that the fight between submarines was possible thanks to the sonar...

And in the film, I think it would have been much better that a British or American destroyer would have depth-charged them, confusing them with a German submarine... Wait! It was a German submarine! And it was a secret mission!

 

The stereotyped 'stiff upper lip' English accents annoy me.
Havent Yanks heard of Cockneys, Geordies, Scousers etc.. before, do they relise we dont all sit around drinking tea and eating crumpets.

Theres this horrid scene in Band of brothers (i know its tv) were a Yank goes up to a British guy in a tank going 'kill him'' and the english guy in the most stereotyped accent ever goes

''well i cant bloody well see the bugger, can i''

And that guy with a bulldog on the longest day.
Britains landings are treated as comedy scenes...with Sean connery as the scot and the brit too calling the irish guy. Its a farce.
The American beachs have seriouse battle scenes with Mitchum and co...i know Omaha was worse hit but jesus.

I hated U-571 too, you would NOT catch a great director like Kubrick or Scorcese taking SUCH liabilitys with the truth.

[ 18. May 2003, 07:06 AM: Message edited by: seanuk82 ]

 

Carl, you must own the book "the history of the TDB"

I can't believe that vets actually like any part of U-571

 

Hi Mike--all I have is "Tank Killers" which is signed by Bodo Spranz. Currently packed in a box--somewhere.

Yep--Dieter Hille told me he liked it from a Uboat Engineers point of view--and liked the movie as he had told me it brought back some memories for him--even if some things weren't accurate--like the torpedo attack where the torpedo slides against the side of U 571.

Three of the U 181 vets liked it because they didn't watch it thinking it was supposed to be acccurate--they did like the story.

Oh and their favorite Uboat movie happens to be: "The Enemy Below" because of the great actors in it like Mitchum, Kurt Jurgens and Theodor Bikel. They liked Jurgens the most because his character was portrayed much like what both Luth and Freiwald were like.

I've always liked this movie because of the actors and it was always fun being allowed to stay up to 2 am watching this movie on a Saturday latenight showing back when ABC and NBC Networks showed older movies on the weekend.